Conversations in a Paperwing
by Glitterglue
Summary: Takes place directly after Nicholas Sayre and the Creature in the Case, although I don't think there are any real spoliers. Nick and Lirael, she talks, he flirts.


Disclaimer: not mine

A.N: Takes place immediately after Nicholas Sayre and the Creature in the Case. No real spoilers, though.

Nicholas Sayre knew he should be exhausted. If not from all the running he had done, the smoke inhalation, or the good old fashioned lack of sleep, then the blood loss should have done him in. He felt the shock of too many shots of adrenaline wearing off, but still sleep would not come. He shook his head and ran his fingers over the bandage on his wrist, his hand still stained with the blood that had flowed there a short while ago.

"Blood of a Bright Shiner," He muttered to himself and shook his head again.

"What was that?" Lirael asked, turning around from her seat at the front of the Paperwing.

He jumped slightly, startled that she had spoken atall. She had barely said five words to him since they had boarded theflying contraption in Barhedrin.

"Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself...I mean, I'm not actually having a conversation with myself, you see. Well, as it were, I was just...and then I..." Nick words faded at the confused expression on Lirael's face and felt his own face flush, thanking the night for hiding his obvious embarrassment.

"I see," Lirael replied blandly, before moving to face away from him again.

Nick cursed his own idiocy, wondering again how this women, girl really, was able to unsettle him so effectively. At first he had told himself it was because she had seen a part of him that no one else had. The desperate and confused boy on the Red Lake, dying and bring death, without even knowing it. It was in the morning, about a week earlier, as he looked at Lirael's short letter to him, that he realized that he'd been reading the note first thing every morning since he had received it. And he suddenly knew what the black and tan dog had meant when she told him there would be other loves. It was then that he started lobbying his uncle for a passport in earnest. It was those emotions that kept him from sleep, being so close to her in the tiny Paperwing.

And it was these thoughts that made him almost miss the sight of Lirael bending forward to whisper something to the Paperwing before turning around to face him again, although not quite meeting his gaze.

"I really ought to heal that cut of yours, shouldn't I?" She told him hesitantly.

Nick nodded mutely, removing theneat bandageLirael had wrapped around the wound while he was passed out (he groaned internally with the remembrance that she has seen him in such a state again), and placed his wrist in her outstretched hands.

She began to form a chain of charter marks with her flesh hand, holding him gently in her charter one. He knew that most people would be unnerved by the peculiar prosthetic, but the subtle warmth and hum of the charter against his skin was a comfort.

"Thank you." He said sincerely as the spell knit together the skin on his arm. Lirael just bit her lip shyly, giving Nick a small smile.

"You can teach me that, can't you?" Nick wanted to know with some enthusiasm. "To do charter spells and such. I know I'll never be as good as your or Sam, (this earned another smile from Lirael, who was now half hiding behind her hair) but, all the same, I'd like to be useful to you...a-and Sam of course, and...I think I need to learn these things to be useful. After everything, I just want to help you. And Sam, or course, and Sam...But you will teach me, wont you?" He finished somewhat lamely.

Lirael, with a great amount of personal disciple, by the looks of it, stared Nick square in the face, looking very unsure about herself.

"Wouldn't you rather have Sam teach you? You two have know each other much longer than you and I have and I'm not really all that good of a teacher and..."

Now it was Nick's turn of take one of Lirael's hands, the fake one, and grasp it. With his other hand he reached up and tucked her jet black hair behind her ear, so he could see her face without obstruction. "If it's all the same, I'd really like it if you'd teach me." She nodded, albeit with hesitation.  
"Besides," he started while taking her other hand, "Sam really has no patience unless it's with those gadgets he's always tinkering with."

"You'll have to live with me in the Abhorsen's House, that's where I spend most of my time. Some might think it improper." Lirael said, blushing brightly enough that it could be seen in the twilight.

Nick rejoiced inwardly with her words and could feel some of his normal Sayre charm coming through past his exhaustion and nervousness.

"There's no need for embarrassment." He responded lightly, "I'm a gentleman, there shall be no improprieties while I am there. Unless," He added slyly, " the lady requests it." Lirael blushed deeper at these words and mumbled something about Paperwings and flying as she turned away from him.

Nicholas couldn't help but smile to himself as he settled back against Lirael's pack and felt himself slipping into sleep, dreaming of all the ways he could get her to make such a request.


End file.
